Francis Bouygues

Introducing Hollywood's next would-be movie mogul: The King of Concrete. Francis Bouygues, the Frenchman who for nearly four decades was a master builder of tunnels, roads, bridges, prisons and waste treatment plants, now hopes to become a master filmmaker. His massive projects have included the tunnel being dug under the English Channel, the national library in Paris, the sprawling University of Riyadh in Saudi Arabia and the nuclear power plant in Iraq that was bombed by Israel.

Introducing Hollywood's next would-be movie mogul: The King of Concrete. Francis Bouygues, the Frenchman who for nearly four decades was a master builder of tunnels, roads, bridges, prisons and waste treatment plants, now hopes to become a master filmmaker. His massive projects have included the tunnel being dug under the English Channel, the national library in Paris, the sprawling University of Riyadh in Saudi Arabia and the nuclear power plant in Iraq that was bombed by Israel.

Actor Alain Delon, the heartthrob and screen tough guy who has dominated French film for more than three decades, sold 32 paintings at a Paris auction Sunday for a total of $7 million. Delon sold his most valuable painting of the day, a 1910 Modigliani portrait of a young woman, for $1.2 million, the Drouot auction house said. The entire sale, including works by other art lovers, fetched $18 million, with the most expensive painting, Picasso's "The Yellow Belt," going for about $5 million.

As with Mark Twain's premature mortality, the reports of David Lynch's artistic demise have been greatly exaggerated. "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me" (at selected theaters), released without press screenings to protect Lynch from the critics who once doted on him, is not the disaster this strategy suggests. "Eraserhead" or "Blue Velvet" it's not, but this movie swims in their stream.